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| Nick in his new bath pavilion |
40 MEMORABLE FUCKS
Actually some of My Forty Fucks are not sexual at all but what they have in common is a strong and instructive connection with The Mysterious Other -- in this particular list I define The Other to be a member of the opposite sex.
Sometimes on various mind-altering drugs. Sometimes completely straight.
Just for fun a while ago I made a list of (for me) Forty Memorable Fucks. Since then I have added more items, both through subsequent happenings plus reminiscences of ones I'd long forgotten.
It's more than forty now.
Are you the least bit interested in exploring what sexually astonishes you? I encourage you to put together your own list of memorable fucks. Since I was somewhat shy and ignorant in those days, your list will probably be much much longer than mine.
Here's one simple example of a (non-sexual) incident from my list. It may not mean that much to you but it seemed at the time profoundly important and insightful to me.
Your fuck memorable mileage may vary of course.
South of Esalen Institute in Big Sur a public campground is located near the beach at Lime Kiln Creek. There's also a restricted access private campground that extends into the hills and encompasses the actual lime kilns for paying customers only and (in our case) we were friends with the manager of the camp.
My future wife Betsy Rasumny and I car-camped at the private Lime Kiln park, spending a few days there, and decided to explore the premises on LSD. We wandered up to the famous lime kilns and viewed them in their ritualistic splendor.
Betsy was a dancer trained both in ballet and dance improv in New York City and at the late Ann Halprin's Dancer's Workshop in San Francisco. So I was surprised when we crossed Lime Kiln Creek barefoot (and probably naked as well) that she was stumbling over the smooth rocks that lay beneath the surface of the stream, while I (totally untrained in dance) had no problem in skillfully traversing this little Big Sur rivulet.
"Hey Betsy," I shouted. "I thought you were a dancer. What happened to your gracefulness?"
Betsy looked me straight in the eye and replied: "Nick dear, dance is not only about grace."
And in that moment I wordlessly realized that she with her seemingly clumsy movements was moving fully in the imperfect moment while I, who am accustomed to seeing life more as a problem to be solved rather than a miracle to be savored, was experiencing what was happening from a totally different perspective.
It's not that her way was better than mine. But her answer raised a question in my mind that persists to this day.
Betsy was expert in living in the present; Nick's monkey mind is usually somewhere else entirely .
Is being clumsily fully present better than being gracefully fully in charge?
In Esalen co-founder Mike Murphy's terms, what is the way to more deeply employ and enjoy "this life we are given?"
And could your own Five or Five Hundred Memorable Fucks become useful clues for learning to live more fully this strange miracle of waking each morning inside a needy animal body?
